I'm a secularist, but Richard Dawkins doesn't appeal to me too much, because he only seems to be making a scientific argument but ends up stuck in social/moral notions, with unexamined assumptions. I don't think that works. I don't think that it works to say that teaching religion is a form child abuse because physics shows that god does not exist. I don't think it works because there are atheists who also abuse their children (by teaching them the principles of consumerism as their only "ethic", for instance). I don't think it works because it is begging the question as to what child abuse actually is -- social workers and sociologists would be able to give us a better idea. But I think Dawkins model, which denies the right of the humanities (for example, French philosophers) to criticize society,gives too much power to the consumerist model, which can take up this empty, ideological space. There are those who would be inclined to say, "Not giving my child the latest and fastest computer model is a form of child abuse." This should be criticized, but Dawkins prefers to lend his hand to attacking Luce Irigaray.
And then there is also the problem in Dawkins's model concerning his tacitly held notion of ideological purity. His argument about child abuse and religious indoctrination is strained because we are all "indoctrinated" into something -- sometimes as bad as a consumerist ideology. And he also has a view of ideological purity: the hard line athiest's sense that atheism is better than even liberal religiosity as it does not create a bridge of tolerance (as liberal christianity does) between secularism and fundamentalism. But this kind of argument follows the pattern that a lot of right wingers use.
So, these are problems with Dawkins. And then, of course, the ultimate problem that hard science and scientism do not in themselves furnish us with the values required for a humanistic society. Even sociology can at best study the pros and cons of social conditions and procedures already in place. This is an overestimation of what "science" can and should do for us -- which could lead to an undermining of the moderating effect of the liberal religions on society, and to the acceptance of something crude, like social darwinism.
Finally: the ultimate mistake that kind of creeps in -- the expectation of a scientific "thou shalt" to put human societies into moral order. This assumption derives from a religious impuse that wants to be given a different, scientific aura.
And then there is also the problem in Dawkins's model concerning his tacitly held notion of ideological purity. His argument about child abuse and religious indoctrination is strained because we are all "indoctrinated" into something -- sometimes as bad as a consumerist ideology. And he also has a view of ideological purity: the hard line athiest's sense that atheism is better than even liberal religiosity as it does not create a bridge of tolerance (as liberal christianity does) between secularism and fundamentalism. But this kind of argument follows the pattern that a lot of right wingers use.
So, these are problems with Dawkins. And then, of course, the ultimate problem that hard science and scientism do not in themselves furnish us with the values required for a humanistic society. Even sociology can at best study the pros and cons of social conditions and procedures already in place. This is an overestimation of what "science" can and should do for us -- which could lead to an undermining of the moderating effect of the liberal religions on society, and to the acceptance of something crude, like social darwinism.
Finally: the ultimate mistake that kind of creeps in -- the expectation of a scientific "thou shalt" to put human societies into moral order. This assumption derives from a religious impuse that wants to be given a different, scientific aura.
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